TITLE:
Post-Graduation Professors and Coordinators with Special Needs: Perceptions about Teaching, and Working during COVID-19 Pandemic
AUTHORS:
Roberta Pires Corrêa, Roberto Rodrigues Ferreira, Paulo Roberto Soares Stephens, Tania Araujo-Jorge, Helena Carla Castro
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Professor, Coordinator, Concepts, Evaluation
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.12 No.11,
November
23,
2021
ABSTRACT: The challenge of implementing new teaching strategies as well as innovating in the academic environment is a task demanded during this global humanitarian health problem named COVID-19 pandemic. It demanded that most countries adjust their education systems to meet the needs of all students isolated in their houses, requiring even more from professors and coordinators. In this article, we collected and evaluated the perceptions of professors and coordinators of Brazilian postgraduate courses, self-declared with special needs on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the period 2020/2021. For that purpose, after being approved by the ethical committee, we applied a questionnaire answered by 87 participants with special needs, including professors (n = 14) and coordinators (n = 73) of post-graduation programs from all five Brazilian regions. Among the 87 participants, there were people with blindness/visual impairment (n = 35), deafness/hearing impairment (n = 15), as well as TDHA/Dyslexia/Autism (n = 11), or physical disability (n = 8), among others. Our work revealed that COVID-19 not only impacted the academic level but also the personal and psychological levels of these professionals with the development of anxiety and depression similar to other professional classes (e.g.,health area). Thus, strategies of attending this group from these Brazilian Lato Sensuand Stricto Sensugraduate programs should be planned to help their psychological and mental health and consequently assure their good performance as professors and researchers in the near future.